X-Git-Url: http://repo.macrolet.net/gitweb/?a=blobdiff_plain;f=unix-lisp.post;h=8bb702d2b4c591a0a5f7fd042a7a77025c5f0f99;hb=9c723728db83978960cbb27b49b87f9e332475cd;hp=7a12248f65780521d84fa51c28d265634ac3a0f1;hpb=dcde588cded250b4f4a74855a6fc50987c683d6b;p=blog.git diff --git a/unix-lisp.post b/unix-lisp.post index 7a12248..8bb702d 100644 --- a/unix-lisp.post +++ b/unix-lisp.post @@ -1,7 +1,7 @@ ;;;;; title: Lisp layered on Unix tags: lisp,unix,emacs -date: 2014-08-20 23:26:36 +date: 2014-11-27 21:31:10 format: md ;;;;; @@ -11,3 +11,71 @@ current Unix environment. Of course that includes plan9 on the one side and Emacs on the other. [heart]: http://www.lispcast.com/the-heart-of-unix (The Heart of Unix) + +# Lisp shell + +There is [scsh](???), but it's not really what I'm looking for. Using emacs as +login shell (with the `eshell` package) comes closest to it regarding both +with existing commands and integration of Lisp-based ones. However, while +pipes work as expected with `eshell`, data is still passed around as +(formatted) text. There doesn't seem to be an easy way to pass around +in-memory objects, at least while staying in Emacs itself. That would of +course mean to reimplement some (larger?) parts of that system. + +This all ties in to the idea that unstructured text isn't the best idea to +represent data between processes. Even though Unix pipes are extremely useful, +the ecosystem of shell and C conventions means that the obvious way isn't +completely correct, meaning that there are edge cases to consider. The best is +something as innocent as `ls | wc -l`, which will break, depending on the shell +settings, with some (unlikely) characters in filenames, i.e. newlines. + +# + +One of the problems is obviously that in order to pass around structured data, +i.e. objects, all participants have to understand their format. Passing +references won't work without OS support though. + +Instead of having unstructured streams, use streams of (data) objects. The +distinction here is Plain Old Objects (PODs) instead of objects with an +associated behaviour. + +Let's take a look at standard Unix command line tools (I'm using GNU Coreutils +here) in order to reproduce the behaviour and/or intent behind them: + +## Output of entire files + +The first command here is `cat`. Although GNU `cat` includes additional +transformations, this command concatenates files. Similar to the description, +we can image a `CAT` to perform a similar operation on streams of objects. + +It doesn't make much sense to concatenate a HTML document and an MP3 file +(hence you won't do it in most cases anyway). However, since files are +unstructured, `cat` can work on them. + +# Registering functionality + +Although you can call commands individually on files, some of them form an +ad-hoc service interface already: The C compiler, along with the toolchain +forms one such interface, where you're required to use the same interface if +you want to seamlessly replace one part of the toolchain. + +Same goes for the Coreutils: As long as you honour the interface, programs can +be replaced with different implementations. + +# Interactive commands + +Emacs has a special form `interactive` to indicate whether a command can be +directly called via the command prompt. There is also special handling there +to accomodate the use of interactive arguments. This is something that can be +generalised to the OS. An example of where this already happens is the +`.mailcap` file and the `.desktop` files from desktop suites. + +# Threading and job control + +Unfortunately getting proper job control to work will be a bit of a problem in +any Lisp implementation, since the best way to implement the concurrent jobs is +using threads, which are not particularly suited for handling the multitude of +signals and other problems associated with them. Even without job control +pipelines implemented in Lisp require shared in-memory communication channels, +so something like (object-based) streams, mailboxes, or queues are necessary to +move IO between different threads.